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YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar must stop forcing cyclone survivors to return to their shattered homes where they face more misery or even death, rights groups said on Saturday, as a U.S. official accused the junta of being "deaf and dumb" to foreign aid pleas.

CONAKRY (Reuters) - Guinea began paying salary arrears to junior soldiers on Friday in an attempt to end a five-day bloody mutiny that had worsened instability in the world's top bauxite exporter.

GREAT FALLS, Montana (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama squabbled with Republican John McCain on Friday over the number of U.S. troops in Iraq in the latest disagreement between the two likely presidential nominees over the unpopular war.

MANAGUA (Reuters) - Alma, the first tropical storm of the hurricane season, lost its strength on Friday over Central America, sparing oil platforms in southern Mexico after slamming parts of the region with deadly winds and rain.

After five months of voting, 16 months of campaigning and more surprises, reversals and comebacks than any U.S. political race deserves, the grueling duel for the Democratic presidential nomination could be entering its final days.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have attended just four rock concerts in her life, but the rock band Kiss apparently thinks she is pretty cool.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A Canadian man stabbed to death a tenant in the basement of his suburban Calgary home on Tuesday evening, then went upstairs and killed his wife, two of his three young children and, finally, himself, Calgary police said on Friday.

QUITO (Reuters) - A volcano in the Galapagos islands spewed molten lava, threatening 100-year-old giant tortoises living around the crater, island officials said on Friday.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haiti has been hit with a growing number of kidnappings this year as its government struggles to build a stable democracy in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Georgia said on Friday it had stopped spy plane flights over breakaway Abkhazia as Western nations prepared a diplomatic drive to calm tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow that have raised fears of war.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday imposed sanctions on Kurdish rebels and an Italian organized crime group in an attempt to cut off their access to the U.S. financial system and their funding.

NAPLES (Reuters) - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Friday he would rely on the Italian army to face down protests over his plans to end a trash crisis in the southern city of Naples.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed paramilitary force in Pakistan's lawless border area may be aiding Taliban fighters, according to American officials who say the support may cause Congress to freeze some security funds for Islamabad.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma on Friday comforted the children of African migrants displaced in a wave of xenophobic attacks, pledging to help them and their families rebuild their lives.

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - A Salvadoran passenger plane skidded off a rain-soaked runway on landing at Tegucigalpa airport in Honduras on Friday, killing five people and injuring 38 as it veered onto a road and smashed into cars and a building.

JEDDAH (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Friday he has some problems with the housing rescue plan under consideration in the U.S. Senate, but will work to craft a bill that President George W. Bush can sign.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Leaders of Israel's governing Kadima party plan to meet in as little as a week to decide on an internal ballot that could replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, senior Kadima members said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush offered renewed backing on Friday for Pakistan during a telephone call he made to its president, Pervez Musharraf, who was trying to quash rumors that he plans to leave office.

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have attended just four rock concerts in her life, but the rock band Kiss apparently thinks she is pretty cool.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has formally requested a U.N investigation into the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, her widower said on Friday.